geek – Page 3 – Daleisphere

April 3, 2009February 28, 2017

The Twitter Apps, Tools and Widgets I Use

The Twitter apps, tools and widgets I use are constantly changing. Below are the tools I currently use (click on the images for larger views):

Desktop Client – Twhirl

I use Twhirl as my desktop twitter application. I looked at TweetDeck but it was overkill and it takes up too much screen real-estate. I tried the gorgeous blu (works only on Vista and Windows 7), but it does not have an adjustable font. The default font is too small for my aging eyes. Twhirl is surprisingly feature rich but it takes awhile to figure out all the intricacies. I’ve tried others, but keep coming back to Thwirl.

iPhone App – Tweetie

Tweetie is terrific. I had previously used Twitterific and Twinkle on the iPhone but Tweetie ($2.99) satisfies me the most. Tweets are presented in bubbles similar to the iPhone’s SMS bubbles. Thankfully, the font is adjustable. Functions and information are an easy swish away. Twitterific does have the advantage of supporting both Twitter and friendfeed.

See also: 29 Twitter Apps for the iPhone Compared (Mashable)

Continue reading “The Twitter Apps, Tools and Widgets I Use”

March 23, 2009February 28, 2017

How to Host Your Email on Your Domain using Google Apps’ Gmail– for Free!

With Google Apps’ Gmail you can set up personalized email addresses for yourself, up to 50 members of your family or 50 employees in your business, using an Internet domain you own and control – for free! Your email address will no longer be chained to your ISP or your web-based email provider such as Hotmail, Yahoo! or Gmail.

I have been using Google Apps to host my personal and professional ‘@daledietrich.com’ email (pictured above) for about a year now. In this post I provide detailed, step-by-step instructions on how to do this.

While Google Apps’ Gmail is completely free, to use it you must register your own domain. If you haven’t yet, you can register a domain with a Domain Host (‘DH’). I use GoDaddy. As of the date I write this, GoDaddy charges $9.99 U.S. ($9.99 on sale) for a one year registration of a DOT COM domain ($6.99 to transfer in an existing .com domain) and $10.69 for annual renewals.

Screenshots below were taken when I set up my ‘daleipshere.com’ domain to use Google Apps Gmail using GoDaddy.com as my DH.

Why Google Apps for Email?

A. Email Hosting for Any Domain – for Free: I used to pay $65 a year to have my @daledietrich.com email hosted by Elehost (a terrific ISP by the way). Now my @daledietrich.com, @daleisphere.com and @wishhh.com email is hosted on Google Apps for free!

B. Freedom from ISP Domains: Most personal email accounts use the ISPs domain – eg: yourname@comcast.com, yourname@rogers.com. This artificially locks users into a given ISP. If you wish to change your ISP you may be reluctant to do so because you’ll have to change your email address. If a move results in a change of ISP, you’ll have the additional hassle of changing your email address. But, when you set up a Google Apps Gmail account with your own custom domain, email accounts you set up for your family or business can be used forever – regardless of your ISP.

Continue reading “How to Host Your Email on Your Domain using Google Apps’ Gmail– for Free!”

March 23, 2009February 28, 2017

Why I moved to Media Temples’ Grid Service from Self-Hosting with DynDNS

Self-hosting using DynDNS.com was working out well until recently. However, there are several reasons why I moved to Media Temple’s Grid-Service:

Cost: Not including the original home-server cost (I had been using a $600 Dell desktop), it was cheaper to use DynDNS.com for my initial 3 or 4 domains. As I add new domains, the cost of DynDNS was about to become more expensive than Media Temple which allows me to host up to 100 domains for $200 a year.

Future Sites Planned: I have several websites planned for the future. I’m hoping one of those will take-off or get Dugg – where I’ll need the surge capacity that media temple can support.

Bandwidth Caps: As of August 2008 Rogers imposed a 95 Gig per month bandwidth cap. Unlike in the U.S. where a typical user accounts have 200+ Gig caps, the 95 Gig Rogers cap was attached to their highest price consumer account. I have bumped up against and surpassed that cap over the last few months (Rogers charges $2.95 per Gig above the cap). Note: Bell’s highest end consumer account cap is 100 Gigs.

Continue reading “Why I moved to Media Temples’ Grid Service from Self-Hosting with DynDNS”

March 18, 2009February 28, 2017

The Daleisphere Has Moved to Media Temple

On Wednesday March 18, 2009, The Daleisphere was moved from a self-hosted server to Media Temple’s Grid-Service.

If you notice any problems with The Daleisphere flowing from the move, or otherwise, I would appreciate your leaving a comment.

Thanks to Dave Zatz for his constant help and guidance before, during and after the transition. Thanks also to the helpful support folks at media temple for making the transition reasonably painless.

For those interested, here are a few helpful resources I used when making the transition:

March 9, 2009February 28, 2017

Solving TiVo Desktop Plus v. 2.7 License Key Issue Under Windows 7 Beta

On Sunday March 8, I spent several hours on the phone with both TiVo and Digital River’s (TiVo’s online license key fulfillment provider) technical support teams. After installing the generic TiVo Desktop 2.7 software under the Windows 7 Beta , the desktop software would NOT accept my TiVo Desktop Plus License Key. It kept telling me I had an invalid key.

The only solution TiVo’s support team had in its database was to reinstall the app – which didn’t work when I tried it. Digital River issued me a new license key. The TiVo Desktop 2.7 app rejected that key as well.

After a couple hours and four phone calls we/they all gave up. I was about to try installing the older TiVo Desktop version 2.6.2 when it occurred to me to try running BOTH the installer and the app in Windows Vista compatibility mode.

VOILA!!!! That worked!

TiVo Desktop 2.7 accepted my Desktop Plus License Key and the application has been working fine under Windows 7 beta ever since.

Continue reading “Solving TiVo Desktop Plus v. 2.7 License Key Issue Under Windows 7 Beta”

March 4, 2009February 28, 2017

Pixlr – Terrific, Free, Web-based Image Editor

I discovered a terrific new web-based image editor called pixlr.com. It works like Photoshop Elements, Paint.net and other popular image editors – but from inside any browser, with nothing to install.

It’s free. No sign-up or user account needed. No downloads or installs required. It just works – instantly.

Remarkably, If you have Adobe Flash 10 installed, it works like a desktop app, but, still, in your browser. Load and save images from your PC via typical desktop pull-down menus. Press F11 to make it go full screen. It looks and feels like you are running a desktop app.

It works on the Mac or a PC – anywhere you can install Adobe Flash. This is particularly attractive for Mac users given that there is no useful image editor built into OS X.

Continue reading “Pixlr – Terrific, Free, Web-based Image Editor”

February 18, 2009February 28, 2017

Data Robotics Wants to Charge Me for Drobo Firmware Updates!

This is the first time in my 25+ years in computing that a hardware manufacturer has informed me that it wants to charge me for a firmware update to a consumer electronics product. I checked my Drobo for firmware updates yesterday and was startled to receive this message:

It was bad enough that my DroboShare experience was a disaster. Despite promised upgrades, Data Robotics support folks could never get it to work properly with my Vista 64 or my XP systems on my home network – others had the same problem. They just gave up. To this day, my DroboShare sits unused on a shelf in my closet – $300+ wasted!

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February 8, 2009February 28, 2017

How to Disable ‘Send Feedback’ link in Windows 7 Beta

While I am not against providing feedback to Microsoft on their Windows 7 beta, I have constantly clicked on the ‘send feedback’ link on the top right of every window by accident.

To remove it:

Run Regedit (Start button – type ‘regedit’)
Navigate to:
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Desktop
Change the ‘FeedbackToolEnabled’ key to 0 (it is set at 3 by default)
Reboot

February 5, 2009February 28, 2017

How to Convert AAC Songs to MP3s in iTunes

If you want to play those AAC songs you purchased in iTunes on another media player that doesn’t support AAC or if you need an MP3 version of an AAC song for other uses, such as with Animoto, fear not, its easy to convert an AAC song in iTunes to MP3 format.

Here’s how to do this on a PC:

open iTunes
click on the ‘Edit’ menu
click ‘Preferences’
click the ‘General’ tab
click the ‘Import Settings’ button
click ‘MP3 Encoder’ on the ‘Import Using’ pull-down menu
Select the desired quality level on the ‘Setting’ pull-down menu

I suggest using the highest possible ‘Higher Quality (192 kbps)’ option. This will take more time but encodes the best quality MP3.

click ‘OK’ twice to close both dialogue boxes
select the AAC track you want to convert in the iTunes window
(you can click and convert more than one at a time if you wish)
right-click on it;
choose "Create MP3 version" from the popup menu.

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February 3, 2009February 28, 2017

How to Migrate Feedburner Feeds to Google Adsense

Google’s acquired Feedburner back in June of 2007. Feedburner has since been integrated into the Google Adsense platform. Bloggers can now place adsense units into their RSS feeds. In order to take advantage of of this service I needed to migrate my three Feedburner feeds into the new Google adsense feeds system.

According to this Google/Feedburner FAQ, February 28, 2009 is the deadline to migrate feeds. After that users will no longer be able to access their Feedburner accounts.

The migration process is simple for regular Feedburner users.

I use the MyBrand service – see my earlier ‘Google Turned Feedburner into ‘Free’burner Without My Knowledge’ post. A few more steps are required to migrate MyBrand feeds.

General Migration Steps

You can initiate the migration process from inside of Google Adsense or Feedburner. I initiated the transfer from within Adsense.

Note: You’ll need to set up an adsense account before you initiate the migration.

Click on this link to begin: ‘Move feeds to your Google Account’.

Enter your Feedburner credentials into the following dialogue box:

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February 2, 2009February 28, 2017

Windows 7 is Really Windows 6.1

There has been quite a bit of debate recently on why Microsoft named Windows 7, Windows 7. There have been, in fact, a dozen or so versions of Windows released over the years (not including the multiple SKU’s per release).

As you can see from the picture above, Microsoft’s internal version number for Windows 7 is version 6.1. Ha! You can see this for yourself if you are running Windows 7:

Start
All Programs
Accessories
Command Prompt
type ‘ver’ and hit enter

Tada! 🙂

Continue reading “Windows 7 is Really Windows 6.1”

January 24, 2009February 28, 2017

Why and How to Integrate Facebook Connect with Disqus

The primary reason I switched from Intense Debate to Disqus, is Disqus’s integration with Facebook Connect. Below I describe why this is important. I then provide a step-by-step ‘how-to’ guide on how to integrate Facebook Connect with Disqus.

[This Post was Updated on April 18, 2009 to reflect the changes made to the setup process, both on Disqus and the Facebook developer pages.]

1. Why Facebook Connect is a Big Deal

Discussion via comments draws users back for repeated visits to their site while engaging them in conversation with the blogger and other commenters. Bloggers want traffic to drive more ad sales and, frankly, they want more people reading their content. Otherwise, what’s the point?

Users are understandably reluctant to leave comments on blogs. Most bloggers, including myself, require users to leave a name, email address and an optional URL. The reason for this, at least in my case, is to weed out spam commenters and to develop a sense of community among commenters. Requiring such information has the unfortunate side effect of dissuading most readers from commenting because they don’t want:

the ‘sign up’ hassle just to leave a comment; and
to provide personally identifying information.

Facebook Connect solves these two problems and provides other terrific benefits.

Continue reading “Why and How to Integrate Facebook Connect with Disqus”

January 24, 2009February 28, 2017

How to Integrate Disqus within WordPress 2.7 Blogs

Earlier this month I described How to install Intense Debate in WordPress 2.7 blogs. In my ‘Why I switched from IntenseDebate to Disqus’ post [coming soon] I describe why I made the switch.

The Disqus installation instructions are out of date (written for pre WP 2.7 blogs) and surprisingly difficult to follow.

Happily, both Disqus and IntenseDebate mirror/sync comments within a blog’s databases (though there are still problems with threaded comments not retaining structure – see part 6 below). This makes it possible to switch back and forth between the two at will.

Below I provide a step-by-step guide for integrating Disqus within a WordPress 2.7 blog. I first make some preparatory recommendations. Then I describe the steps needed to set up with Disqus, download and install the Disqus WP plugin, how to import your historical comments into Disqus and, finally, how to reclaim straggler comments.

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January 16, 2009February 28, 2017

Windows 7 Beta – First Impressions, Problems, Bugs, Likes and Dislikes

On Sunday January 11, 2009, I upgraded my 64 bit Windows Vista production PC to the 64 bit Windows 7 Beta (‘’W7B’) (available here until ~~Jan 24~~ February 10, 2009).

The installation was straight forward. It took about two hours to complete on my system (I understand clean installs can be done in about 20 minutes). After answering a few questions, the upgrade took care of itself.

[Update: On Sunday January 18, installed W7B on my Lenovo x41 Tablet in dual-boot mode. So far so good. I hope to write a separate post about my tablet experiences with it soon.’]

Below I describe the problems, bugs, likes, dislikes and other observations I’ve made after constantly using the beta in a production environment for five days.

1. Upgrade Problems, Issues, Bugs

The upgrade went smoothly for the most part. But, I did experience the following problems, issues and bugs:

Windows Desktop Gadgets Do Not Work When UAC is Shut Off: This bug took me several days to isolate. As you’ll read below, I shut off UAC because, among other reasons, Woopra wouldn’t start automatically with it turned on. Isolation was tricky because when you first turn off UAC, the gadgets don’t immediately disappear. But they will be gone after your next reboot. In my case the next reboot came after I installed a sound card driver (see below). For days I though my sound card driver was knocking out my gadgets … until I found this article explaining the bug. Suffice it to say, in Windows 7 Beta, if you turn off UAC, your gadgets will disappear. For now I’ve set UAC on the lowest settings to keep my gadgets going. This means Woopra won’t auto-start any more (see below) and I have to manually bypass the UAC warnings each time I manually start it up.
Multi-monitor & Screen Resolution Setup Issue: I have four monitors connected to my Dell XPS rig. Both: (i) the relative positioning settings (ie: where monitors sit next to each other); and (ii) the screen resolution settings s (ie: 1900 x 1200); used in Vista were futzed up after the upgrade. Plus, the procedure used to adjust the relative monitor positioning has changed in W7B. It took me some time to figure that out. To adjust each of these settings in W7B, right click on the desktop and select ‘Screen Resolution’ (click image for larger view). From there you can position your monitors and set the screen resolutions back to where they should be.

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January 8, 2009February 28, 2017

Scoble Convinced me to Join friendfeed

Since joining Twitter a few months back, I have wanted to understand how it overlapped/interacted with the web-content aggregator friendfeed. I looked at friendfeed at least two or three times and never quite ‘got it’ – until today.

Robert Scoble was a guest on the recent episode 81 of net@night. This guy is quite the friendfeed evangelist (Arrington suggests he’s addicted to it). So much so that the net@nite discussion made me want to take another look. Leo mentioned that Scoble had done a ‘how to’ type video on friendfeed. A quick Google search lead me to this very informative 26 minute video: ‘Robert Scoble: 20 Things About Friendfeed”:

Continue reading “Scoble Convinced me to Join friendfeed”

January 6, 2009February 28, 2017

How To Install IntenseDebate in WordPress 2.7

Since listening to this net@night podcast back in May 2008, where Amber and Leo interviewed Daniel Ha, the founder of the Disqus, I have been interested in implementing this kind of a community-oriented, commenting/discussion system on my blogs.

Early on, I had compared the feature set of Disqus and its competitor, IntenseDebate (“ID”), and Disqus’s feature set and looks won. Concerns surrounding the ability to import, export, sync and otherwise control my comments, held me back. I was not going to join any system where I lost ownership/control of my users’ comments.

In the interim, both Disqus and ID have added dynamic comment importing, exporting and synchronization features. I became comfortable that I would not be locked into any commenting system if/when I chose to leave. Scot Jangro’s December 30, 2008 post, ‘Comment System Review Redux’, compared the the two systems afresh and gave me substantial comfort that ID’s feature set had evolved to near parity with Disqus (see other comparisons: inquisitr.com | Mashable).

But the clincher came on Sept 23, 2008 when Automattic, the owner of WordPress, purchased IntenseDebate. (See: Matt Mullenweg’s comment – IntenseDebate’s comment – Disqus’s comment). I expect Automattic to integrate IntenseDebate’s community comment / discussion system into the WordPress core at some point. So, as a WordPress user, it seemed a no brainer to go with IntenseDebate.

[January 23, 2009 Update: Despite what I wrote above, I ultimately switched to Disqus not long after implementing Intense Debate. In my ‘Why I switched from IntenseDebate to Disqus’ post [coming soon] I describe why I made the switch.]

IntenseDebate’s WordPress Plugin features are discussed here. The newest WordPress Plugin (v 2.0.18) has been completely overhauled, making the installation and comment import/export/sync process much easier than it was.

Below I describe why I installed ID. I then walk you, step-by-step, through the IntenseDebate installation process in WordPress 2.7.

Continue reading “How To Install IntenseDebate in WordPress 2.7”

December 23, 2008February 28, 2017

Drobo Recovers from Drive Crash as Promised

Data files on each of my web server, laptops, primary computer and iMac are regularly and automatically backed up to my networked Drobo. I also use the Drobo as a primary repository for 100’s of Gigabytes of centralized data – accessible from any device on my home office network, including my Apple TV, TiVo, PS3 and Xbox 360.

As of three days ago, I had two 500 Gigabyte drives and 1 Terabyte drive installed in the Drobo. Two days ago a flashing red light appeared beside one of the 500 Gig drives. This meant that the drive had failed. I purchased a 1 Terabyte Western Digital replacement drive for $114 at infonec.

True to data robotics claims, I was able to hot swap out the defective 500 Gigabyte drive and slide in the new Terabyte drive without incident. It took about 15 seconds to do. Subsequently, it took about six hours for Drobo to reconstitute data redundancy – ie: to format the new drive and redistribute my data across the newly constituted drive array such that data would once again not be lost if any drive failed. During the recovery process, lights beside the three drives blinked green and red. This page on the drobospace.com website says the lights blink green and yellow. It looked more like green and red to me.

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December 12, 2008February 28, 2017

How To Move the iTunes Library to a Home Server while Keeping its Underlying Media Structure Intact

Is the size of your iTunes music library starting to overwhelm your C: drive? Do you want to make your iTunes music library available to more than one PC over a network?

This post is about how to move all the files in your iTunes Music Library (including music, podcasts, videos, TV shows and audio books) from your PC’s drive to a network drive (or another drive on the same PC) while retaining both: (i) the integrity of the underlying file names and organization structures; and (ii) playlists, play counts, ratings etc.

This post is for the gear-head types like myself. Those that have spent time ‘under the hood’ organizing their music the way they want – naming the underlying files with names of their choice, organizing the files into directories of their choice, etc.

If you are like most people and let iTunes do its own thing (ie: let iTunes handle file naming and organization), this post is not for you. There are much easier ways to move your files if you let iTunes do this it’s way. See, for example, here, here and here.

Background

First PMP – The Creative Nomad: My first portable music player was a 32 Meg (yes, Meg, not Gig) Creative Nomad. I organized my music at that time with Windows Media player (‘WMP’).

Dale’s Early Music Organization: Over the years, I spent an enormous amount of time and energy ripping songs from my CDs, keeping my underlying music library file names, file organization/directory structures and meta data pristine. All the files were contained under my C:\Files\MP3 hierarchy, making it very easy to back up my media from time to time by simply backing up that directory.

Continue reading “How To Move the iTunes Library to a Home Server while Keeping its Underlying Media Structure Intact”

December 6, 2008February 28, 2017

WordPress 2.7 – First Impressions

(click image for larger view of this dashboard image)

[Update:As of December 14, 2008, the final release of WordPress 2007 is now out.]

I happily installed WordPress 2.7 RC 1 on my four WordPress sites yesterday. A ‘Holy Grail’ feature I have wanted since I started using WordPress a few years ago is finally here – core auto-upgrading (see below). And it works – Yippee!

For a good summary and description of what’s in WordPress 2.7 I suggest listening to Episode 48 of the WordPress Podcast where (starting at time index 39:13) core developer, Mark Jaquith, walks through the new WordPress features.

Upgrade Automatically

For years, every time a new WordPress version came out, I always sighed. It has been such a pain to update. I’d frequently let many versions slip by without installing them.

Yesterday I spent the entire afternoon upgrading my four WordPress installs from v. 2.5 to v. 2.7. No longer!! Upgrading the core now takes just seconds. To do an upgrade all you need to do is select “Upgrade” from the “Tools” menu (see picture below), then click on the “Upgrade Automatically” button:

Continue reading “WordPress 2.7 – First Impressions”

December 1, 2008February 28, 2017

How to Upgrade to Apache 2.2.10 with Windows XP

For weeks now I have had a persistent problem with my wishhh.com service. It was taking an inordinate amount of time to connect to the service (sometimes as much as 2 minutes or more). After ruling out every possible issue, I decided to upgrade my Apache server to the latest release (version 2.2.10). I’m delighted that the upgrade solved my problem.

I had installed Apache server three years also and made only a few changes to its configuration files since. Being a bit rusty, I searched for an online ‘how-to’ upgrade guide. The only guide I found was Evaria.com’s upgrade tutorial here. It was helpful but a little bit for my tastes. I followed that tutorial and took notes along the way. This post fleshes out the details a bit further.

Note: This post describes my upgrade from Apache version 2.0.54 to the latest version 2.2.10 (as of December 1, 2008). If you are upgrading from a different version, you’ll need to make adjustments to the instructions below to reflect your specific circumstance. If needed, you can view my server specs at the end of this post for.

Before you Begin

Gather Your Info: Information on the latest version of Apache HTTP Server can be found here.
Download the Package: Before de-installing your current version, be sure have the latest version at the ready. You can download it from one of the mirror sites linked into here. I downloaded this ‘Win32 Binary without crypto (no mod_ssl)’ .msi installation file was:
apache_2.2.10-win32-x86-no_ssl.msi
Upgrade Info: Basic upgrade information can be found here. Unfortunately, I could not find step-by-step upgrade instructions on the apache.org site - hence this post.

Continue reading “How to Upgrade to Apache 2.2.10 with Windows XP”

November 4, 2008February 28, 2017

Had to Replace My TiVo Series 3 Power Supply

Three days ago I pulled the power chord on my TiVo Series 3. As I have done several times recently, I was taking my Series 3 to take it to a friend’s house to see how many over-the-air HDTV channels TiVo could receive in his neighbourhood.

Embarrassingly, when I got to my friends house, plugging the S3 in yielded only a a soft, staccato tick, tick, tick. Later, at home, I removed the cover and isolated the ticking as coming from the power supply (see the circled area in the picture above – click image for larger view).

Happily, a quick Goggle search lead me to this weaknees trouble shooting page where I identified the tick, tick, tick sound as a classic sign that the TiVo’s power supply was caput. A few emails back and forth with weaknees support and I was off.

Getting Started

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November 1, 2008February 28, 2017

How to Get Rid of the Annoying Warning Message When Opening Attachments in Outlook 2007

If the warning above annoys you as much as it does me whenever you open an attachment in Office 2007, here’s how to get rid of it.

[FEB 21, 2012 UPDATE: I posted a video of how to do this in Outlook 2010 here.]

The Problem

Microsoft has understandably made security a cornerstone of its recent software releases. Each time you attempt to open a possibly malicious attachment in Outlook 2007, a warning dialogue box like the one above appears. It presents an always-checked, always-grayed-out box that reads: ‘Always ask before opening this type of file’.

Because Word, Excel, PDF and other document types can contain malicious code, you should, as the box warns, only open attachments from trustworthy sources. But, if you have a modern Anti-Virus program such as AVG or Microsoft’s Security Essentials (both of which are free), attachments in your emails should already be checked for malicious code. When this is the case, this warning dialogue box is an unnecessary interruption that becomes increasingly annoying if, like me, you receive emails with attachments many times a day.

The Solution in Windows 7

Warning: You should only do this if you have anti-virus software installed on your computer that checks for, and quarantines, all emails that contain attachments with malicious code. And, as the warning says, you should never open attachments from anyone that you don’t know and trust!

OK, you’ve been duly warned. Here’s how to do it:

Continue reading “How to Get Rid of the Annoying Warning Message When Opening Attachments in Outlook 2007”